He’s your ordinary family man with a government job who does the groceries every evening…OK maybe his job isn’t so ordinary.
The Family Man is an Indian series on Amazon's Prime Video featuring Manoj Bajpayee as Srikant Tiwari - the titular "family man" who also happens to be a secret agent employed by the Indian government. Srikant's wife and children believe he has a desk job and don't know that he does any fieldwork. In fact, Srikant and his team (called the "Threat Analysis and Surveillance Cell or "T.A.S.C.") are responsible for anticipating and preventing terrorist threats.
Season 1 pits T.A.S.C. against a group of Islamist militants who are planning an attack ("Mission Zulfiqar") that will supposedly put 26/11
to shame. Three men from the southern state of Kerala are apprehended by the Coast Guard as they attempt to sneak into Mumbai by sea. Srikant and two other T.A.S.C. agents are charged with interrogating them. However, a routine transportation of the three men goes frighteningly wrong and from then on Srikant and the rest of T.A.S.C. are in a desperate race to track down the men involved and find out exactly what "Mission Zulfiqar" is.
Season 2 starts off with the arrest of a "Tamil Tiger" in India. The Indian Government intends to put the man to trial for his crimes in India and in the process improve India's political relations with Sri Lanka. However, when the man is assassinated before he can be tried, the Tamil Tigers swear vengeance against the Indian Prime Minister and order their "sleeping agents" in India to regroup. T.A.S.C. must track them down and prevent them from carrying out their plan.
Tropes
- Action Girl: Zoya and Saloni in the first season. Umayal and Raji in the second. Also Dhriti when she works out a way to kill her kidnapper.
- Agent Peacock: Major Sameer. He looks mildly the worse for wear after being tortured by the Pakistani Army but only mildly.
- The Atoner: Srikant becomes this after the Karim Batt incident.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Dhriti and Atharv are constantly bickering but when Dhriti comes home one evening in tears Atharv won't let her hide away in the bathroom and keeps calling her to come out.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Repeatedly Invoked.
- Srikant's wife, Suchi, often calls him out for expecting her to be there for her kids and do her job while expecting her to understand when he says that he can't do X or Y for the kids because of his job. That is an entirely valid point, however Srikant's "job" requires him to drop whatever he is doing and report to his team as soon as there is a developing situation (such as terror suspects escaping from their transport van). But then, Suchi doesn't know that this is what Srikant does.
- The Indian government's actions in Kashmir are intended to keep Kashmir within India (as it has historically been part of India) but a number of Kashmiris want independence and are shown as being fed up of the government's crackdown of protests and imposition of curfews and Internet blackouts. Srikant and a local Kashmiri officer discuss this issue.
- Children Are Innocent:
- Deconstructed with Dhriti, who loves to present herself as more mature than she is and will often use foul language or openly discuss topics that her more conservative father finds embarrassing. However, she is still just a child and quite naive in some ways. Her innocence is shattered when she is kidnapped by the young man who she thought was her boyfriend.
- Played Straight with Srikant and Suchi's son, Atharv, most notably when he yells out what he thinks is a swearword but it turns out to be an innocent word that just sounds like the actual word.
- Cliffhanger: Season 1 ends with Mission Zulfiqar apparently successful and Milind and Zoya trapped in the chemical plant. Season 2 ends just as Suchi starts to tell Srikant a secret she has been keeping for the entire season.
- Dark Action Girl: Raji in Season 2.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Raji again. Her family was killed by the Sri Lankan Army when she was 15 and she was gang-raped - she lost count of by how many. She was then rescued by Bhaskaran, the leader of the Tamil Tigers.
- Did They or Didn't They?: Suchi and Arvind - to the point that the question "What happened at Lonavala" has become memetic.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Moosa - one of the three men captured - cries when recounting the horrors that his mother had to go through during the 2002 Gujrat Riots which also resulted in the rest of his family being killed. Turns out, while he was lying about a lot of things, he was not lying about what happened to his mother or his love for her. This turns out to be his Achilles Heel.
- First Day from Hell: Happens to Zoya - the new employee at T.A.S.C. Srikant and JK offer to take her on what they expect will be a routine interrogation of some suspected terrorists - except that the terrorists escape and Zoya finds herself literally in the firing line.
- Good Is Not Nice: Srikant is on the "good" side but he lies a lot (often Played for Comedy) and can be ruthless.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Srikant becomes jealous when he suspects that his wife is developing feelings for a male colleague, Arvind.
- Happily Married: Averted. While Srikant and Suchi genuinely love each other, Srikant's job prevents him from being there for his family when they need him and this places stress on Suchi. She also resents the fact that he expects her to stick to a job that she hates just because it gives her more time to care for her family. Their relationship hits a new low in Season 2 - partly due to Suchi's guilty conscience regarding the incident between her and Arvind, and partly because Srikant's jealousy prevents him from understanding why she wants to go back to working with Arvind.
- He Who Fights Monsters: After T.A.S.C. covers up the Karim Batt debacle, Srikant has a crisis of confidence and asks his boss outright how they are different from the terrorists. His boss tells him that terrorists only have to win once whereas T.A.S.C. has to win every time.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: JK and Srikant. JK is unmarried and treats Srikant and Suchi as his surrogate family.
- Manipulative Bastard: Altaf in Season 1 He goads Karim into opening the dropbox outside the University to focus T.A.S.C.'s attention on him, allowing the real terrorist, Sajid, to go undetected. Also, Major Sameer in Season 2. He organises the Tamil Tigers' leader's brother to be assassinated - making it appear that the Indian Government is responsible - and then persuades the emotionally devastated leader of the Tamil Tigers to instruct his remaining rebel forces to assassinate both the Indian PM and the Sri Lankan President.
- Manly Tears: Srikant wells up when discussing the death of Pasha and cries in earnest after Milind is killed. He is shown breaking down briefly in private when his daughter is kidnapped (although he pulls himself together immediately when a colleague asks him to come over and check some important footage). He also becomes tearful when visiting JK in hospital.
- My God, What Have I Done?: This is Srikant, JK and Pasha's collective reaction after they find out what Karim and his friends were actually planning - not a terror attack but to feed beef to a Far-Right Hindu minister and his guests.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: T.A.S.C.'s handling of Karim Batt's case. They believe he is planning a terror attack on a minister and their attempt to intercept him results in a gunfight where Karim and his two friends are killed. Turns out Karim's plan was to feed beef to the minister in revenge for the minister's promotion of hate crimes against Muslims. Srikant and JK's devastated expressions afterwards show that they realise how badly they have stuffed up.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Sajid. At first it appears he is being targeted for some irrelevant criminal offending but it turns out that he is the scooter bomber.
- Oh, Crap!: Many, many times:
- When the three terror suspects escape from the transport van.
- When Srikant figures out that Moosa is Al Qatil.
- When T.A.S.C. hears that Mission Zulfiqar is not finished - there was a Plan B.
- In Season 2 when Srikant realises that Dhriti has been kidnapped.
- Old Flame: Saloni - Srikant's commanding officer when he is sent on a "punishment posting" to Kashmir - was also his girlfriend. It is never made clear exactly how long they were together (and if this was before or during Srikant's marriage to Suchi) and why they broke up.
- Parents as People: Srikant and Suchi are loving parents but struggle to be there for their children as much as they need to because of their work. Also, the deterioration in their relationship has a negative impact on their children - especially Dhriti - but they can't set aside their differences just for the sake of their children.
- Running Gag:
- Poor JK is always left paying the bill or struggles to finish his meal as his colleagues take off.
- And in Season 2, Sambit attempts to have a nice cup of tea on multiple occasions but is always unsuccessful.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Srikant is supremely foul-mouthed (except when in front of his children). JK is not far behind. Bilal among the terrorists also counts. One of his first lines is to tell an accomplice who dared to suggest something to him: "Don't teach your dad how to f***".
- Shout-Out: Atharv tries to hypnotise a dog named "Katappa". Also, JK quips "Pushpa, I hate tears" when Srikant becomes a bit emotional, forcing Srikant to laugh.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Initially the Tamil members of T.A.S.C. do not get along with the North Indian members and co-operate only for duty's sake. However, they soon become Fire-Forged Friends.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Srikant and JK just can't stop snarking at each other.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: This is Raji's default expression when not otherwise engaged.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Srikant gets called out by a number of people for his rash and sometimes illegal actions.
